Ho Ho Ho Merry Thanksgiving! As the holiday season quickly approaches, we thought it would be a great idea to get together with our good friend and fabulous food blogger, Nicole over at Pinch My Salt, and eat some great holiday food…early! With this post we will begin a new seasonal series: Fan-freakin-tastic Holiday Recipes perfect for whatever fall/winter celebration you may have. We’ll try to hit some traditional highlights and even give some new ideas on classic ingredients.

(And no, you can’t shorten the title. Whenever you speak of this post you must say “fan-freakin-tastic holiday recipes perfect for whatever fall/winter celebration you may have”.)

To start things off, we’re featuring baked sweet potatoes stuffed with blue cheese and herbs and wrapped in prosciutto. Everybody knows there has to be a sweet potato dish at holiday feasts… but why’s a hommie have to eat all that extra sugar and marshmallow crap with it? I believe that sweet potatoes are sweet enough with out the addition of extra sugar. Actually, I even like to down-play the sweetness by combining the sweet potatoes with other savory items. Let’s just say that the flavors in these sweet potatoes will hit the walls(NC-17 link) of your taste buds and make your mouth sing.

The other potato dish at our pre-holiday fest was Nicole’s insanely delicious cream cheese mashed potatoes. Apparently these potatoes are a tradition for her family’s holiday meals and I can see why. Seriously – they were dy-no-mite! Truth be told, I prefer plain old, non-sweet potatoes to sweet potatoes almost any day but I think I gave her a run for her money. 😉 Right now I would love to a have a big plate of both potatoes and enjoy a carb-fest of a dinner!

Peel potatoes then place into a pot and cover with 1 inch of water. Season water liberally with kosher salt. Place pot w/ potatoes over high heat. Bring the water to a boil. Once boiling, continue to cook the sweet potatoes for another 5 minutes. Potatoes may not be cooked completely but will finish cooking in the oven.

While the potatoes are boiling make the stuffing. Add the crumbled blue cheese, rosemary, thyme, sage, garlic & black pepper to a bowl. Mash ingredients together using a fork or spoon until the herbs have been fully incorporated into the blue cheese. Set aside until potatoes are ready.

Once the potatoes have finished par-boiling remove them from the water. Allow them to cool for about 10 minutes before handling to avoid burning! Once slightly cooled, slice potatoes in halve length-wise. Make sure to remember which two halves go together, as you will be sealing up the filling.

Using a small spoon (I used a 1/4 tsp for this)scrape out a shallow path, length-wise down the middle of each side of the potato. The path should only be a millimeter or two deep.

Fill the bottom half each potato with about 1-2 tsp of the blue cheese herb mixture, spreading it evenly throughout the shallow path. Do not over fill the potatoes. Place the top half of the potato over the bottom to form a whole sweet potato. Try to gently work the halves closed so that the stuffing doesn't seep out during the cooking process. Repeat this process with all of the potatoes.

Wrap each of the stuffed sweet potatoes with very thinly sliced prosciutto, working carefully so the prosciutto doesn't rip. Try to wrap the prosciutto as tightly as possible.

Once all the potatoes are wrapped, place them on a sheet pan and drizzle with canola oil. Gently rotate each potato making sure all sides of the prosciutto gets a thin layer of oil.

Place potatoes into a 425 degree oven. Cook potatoes for 10 minutes, then flip the potatoes 1/4 turn. Cook for another 15 minutes, turning the potatoes another 1/4 turn after 5 minutes, and again after 10 minutes. This will insure that all of the prosciutto will have a chance to crisp. Remove from oven and serve hot. Enjoy!

genie, they are definitely good for any meal! (and yeah, a little dirty… just like me & T!) 😉

mrs. l – i’m not usually either! that’s why i tried to pair them with some savory favorites!

thanks sheila!

thanks bron! i i forget that you are pretty much as far away from autumn as you can get in your part of the world!

thanks so much, kalyn! i really enjoyed your slow cooker sweet potatoes you just did! that really is a great way to free up oven space during the holidays. genius!

thanks recipegirl! you said it best with “boring old sweet potatoes” not my fave generally…but kicked up a little i can handle!

Amanda, as long as you keep them refrigerated in an air-tight container, i think you could do them upto 24 hours in advance! Just bring them to room temperature before you bake them… or the cook times will be off!

Ok, I’m new to your blog, but I saw this and HAD to make it. So I did. And (drum roll…) they were delicious! I’m thinking I may have to make some alterations though. I’m in Italy and couldn’t find small sweet potatoes (?!) so I had to use these giant ones. Instead of wrapping prosciutto around a bowling ball I decided to slice the sweet potato into disks, place some sliced blue cheese in between and then wrap the prosciutto around the edge. It worked ok. But really the sweet potatoes are so big that even sliced like this they seem too big. I’m wondering…. what do you think if I tried to turn this into a bruschetta? Toast the bread then spread on a thin layer of s.p. then the cheese and prosciutto and pop it under the broiler? Maybe I’ll try it this week with my left over ingredients. I just loved this combination so I really want to get it to work over here! Ciao, Thanks!!

So I tried these as my contribution to a potluck Thanksgiving yesterday. They smelled and looked great while cooking, but I think maybe my sweet potatoes were too large? (The recipe called for “small sweet potatoes”, and I picked the smallest ones I could find.) They were not quite cooked through, but my friends are forgiving and ate them anyway.

I also substituted goat cheese for blue cheese, which seemed to work fine, and was possibly easier for incorporating the herbs. My biggest challenge was the prosciutto, which in my experience rips and separates a little bit even when you’re not trying to wrap it tightly around a halved sweet potato. Did anyone come up with any solutions to this? Three of mine held, three completel came apart during cooking.